The Amazing Race 20: A Terrible First Impression

I watch a lot of reality television. Arguably too much. These shows tend to be populated with terrible people, attention whores, morons, steroid users, drunks, or, most often, all of the above. One show that actually seemed to rise above the dreck of other shows is The Amazing Race. They generally did this by casting teams of seemingly normal people who you actually wanted to root for. Unfortunately, after the introduction of the new season’s contestants during the premiere episode of The Amazing Race 20, I hated nearly every single one of them. Let’s go through the teams and see if you agree with my first impressions.

Dave and Cherie: Married clowns

If I had to use two words to describe these two, I’d use “scary” and “annoying.” Not exactly descriptors for a team I want to root for to win the game. Dave let us know that “what goes around comes around and the karma we’ve built up hopefully will come around and work for us in our favor.” A life of scaring people is not a great way to build up a lot of good karma in my book.

Bopper and Mark: Lifelong friends from Kentucky

Outside of the fact that I’m an Indiana fan and hate Kentucky, there’s really no reason not to root for this team. Unless you want to count Bopper’s name against him. They seem nice enough and they certainly could use the money more than anyone else. After all, no one willingly lives in Kentucky. They declared that they “are going to win the money.” As they’re the oldest team, I’d say the odds of that happening are 0%.

Misa and Maiya: Sisters

Filling the hot girl portion of the program, Misa and Maiya are professional golfers. They’re also Asian, and The Amazing Race is not above using stereotypes to reinforce this point. In fact, the first thing we are shown is Misa and Maiya almost crashing a golf cart. As they’re incredibly attractive and play golf for a living, I’d say life has given them enough breaks. I will not be rooting for them to win a million dollars.

Brendon and Rachel: Recently engaged

Speaking of people who don’t deserve to win a million bucks, Brendon and Rachel already won a reality show. This isn’t the first time that The Amazing Race has borrowed winners from other reality shows on CBS. I never fully understand this tactic. I suppose if you really liked them on the other show, you wouldn’t mind seeing them again, but why pick someone who’s already a millionaire? This does not lead me to root for them. Add to this the fact that Brendon and Rachel seem to be completely unlikable people. Their clip contained one of the sappiest lines I’ve ever heard. While they were “falling in love” in a hammock, Brendon tells Rachel, “You’re not crazy, I’m crazy about you.” Anyone want to bet that this season will be irrefutable proof that Rachel is indeed crazy? She ended her clip by practically shouting, “NO ONE COMES BETWEEN ME AND MY MILLION DOLLARS.” Sounds crazy to me.

Joey and Dan: Friends from New York.

While Joey and Dan didn’t appear on another reality show, they might as well have. These meatheads are straight out of Jersey Shore. There are three major problems with this. Jersey Shore is no longer as popular as it once was, Joey and Dan look like they could be Mike and Vinny’s fathers, and Joey goes by the name “Fitness.” They let us know that “the other teams are going to look at us and think we’ve got your typical Jersey Shore guys, but ah, hopefully we’ll show them wrong.” Lets analyze that sentence for a minute. You’re going to show up on a reality show making references to Jersey Shore, yet you’re hoping that you will show other teams that their first impression of you is incorrect? Joey and Dan, you’re off to a bad start.

Nary and Jamie: Federal agents

These two exuded no personality during their segment. Usually this would be a negative; however, after reviewing their competition, I may have to root for them by default. Unfortunately for them, all female teams tend to struggle mightily in this race, so they’ll probably be out pretty quickly.

Rachel and Dave: Married 2 years

Dave is a major in the Army and served in Iraq for a year. This is clearly the team to root for. I’d much rather see an American hero win the show than some professional athletes or reality “stars.” Dave mentioned that “hopefully the race will be that catalyst to reconnect to reconcile our marriage.” I’m not sure I’d choose a reality show to accomplish that goal, but I’ll be pulling for them.

Elliot and Andrew: Twin brothers

Filling out the hot guy portion of the program are Elliot and Andrew, a professional musician and a professional soccer player, respectively. They let us know that they’re twins and that their relationship is “like a life partner but we’re not gay.” Whatever, weirdos.

Kerri and Stacey: First cousins

Kerri and Stacey let us know that they are typical Daisy Duke country girls. They prove this to us by play fighting with a screwdriver and wrench. Kerri tells us that “at the end of the day we will be in the mud getting dirty with the best of the big boys.” They then show us how scared they are of a couple of chickens. Over/under for how long they last in the race? Two episodes.

Vanessa and Ralph: Dating divorcees

In a love story ripped straight from Shakespeare, I’ll let Vanessa tell you how she and Ralph got together. “I used to stalk him. He got married, I stalked him some more. He got divorced. I got married. So I got divorced and now we’re dating!” Can we get the federal agents or the border patrol guys to remove these morons from society, please?

Art and JJ: Border Patrol agents

Unfortunately for these two, they are old and out of shape, so I predict they will not last very long. They think they’re hilarious, which of course means they’re not funny at all. JJ tell us that their relationship is “like Beauty and the Beast and he thinks that he’s the beauty.” Hilarious.

http://www.stewover.com/ Chas

lol to the “scary” and “annoying” married clowns. based on my google search it looks like the “golfers” got eliminated straight away. maybe they were exposed for not actually being golfers http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CWfPUrmeiU

Indeed. Unfortunately they are, as Chas said, out already. They were so dumb they didn’t see the finish line, literally, right in front of them. Instead we’re stuck with the Jersey Shore morons who should have been eliminated because they don’t know how to drive stick shift. News flash to anyone who gets to go on The Amazing Race (or planning to travel abroad) cars in other countries are often manual. Idiots.

Nobody

Amazing Race 20 is living down to it’s weak start. We’re left with 4 of the most annoying teams in race history, the only satisfactory ending at this point would be if they somehow all lost.

Add the annoyingness of the teams in general with the fact that the producers seem to feel it is a necessity to plug other CBS reality shows by putting on of their contestants of a previous show on every race now (thus making it seem even more like these contestants are NOT, in fact, “real” people), and the terrible design of the tasks in general (how many tasks this season have either been incredibly short or stupidly designed so that all teams will complete them in about the same amount of time regardless of performance?), and you are left with a season that’s been more annoying and boring than entertaining.

I think I may not watch next season, and I’m giving up on this one. I no longer care who wins.

Dave

I agree, it’s been a pretty bad season. We’re left with the bickering Army couple, the horrible reality show stars, the equally terrible Vanessa and Ralph and then (I guess) the team I’m rooting for- Art and JJ. I also agree that the tasks this season have been really boring. I’ll probably write a season recap, hopefully they can come back strong next year. The show can be very good when done right.